Journal

I've been on a roll. Five hundred words an hour, throwing caution to the wind and letting my instincts dictate what happens next. It's great because it's progress. Nevertheless, there's an internal conflict between my editing self and my writing self. Even then, I've come up with a good way to compromise between the two. To preface the above, this is the kind of reckless writing I used to do when I started writing stories. The only difference is that I was unwilling to be the ruthless editor younger Ma-El needed. This changed somewhere, some time, I don't know when. I became hellbent on perfection, managing a meager ten words a night; ten on a good night, that is. To be completely honest with you, I've only begun getting out of this just a few days ago. One evening, I decided to say "screw it." I wrote word after word based off what I felt was the natural flow of how the chapter developed instead of trying to engineer the best scene. After that

It's been a rough week so far. I've been away from my computer, lacking sleep, and just generally feeling like crap. No surprise that I haven't been able to write as much. Now, I'm not sure whether I've mentioned this in previous entries, but my stable routine requires discipline and that's something I've not been able to muster. I'll bounce back but man it sure sucks when you're stuck in the mud. One thing I need to get off my chest is that I watched 'Love, Simon' today. It's a good movie and for now I can only imagine how good the book is. However, I can't help shake the anxiety that follows after experiencing good stories, especially the ones that are successful. There's a twist in my gut that makes me want to be at that point already. Slumps like these make it hard not to be impatient, to be across that finish line, to be on top of the mountain. This is that point in time where watching something like Love, Simon invites dea

Rather slow progress over the past few days. I'm facing conflicting ideas, not really feeling how the chapter will play out. At this rate, it's the best time to move back into outline writing.

"Visualise and execute,"  Zarya, from the video game Overwatch, would say in her thick Russian accent. I did today what I said I would last night. I finished the final touches on Chapter Six, read Chapter Seven in its entirety, and have begun rewriting the latter.  At the rate that I'm going, I see myself finishing my manuscript in the foreseeable future. Once the weekend comes around tomorrow, I'll have a lot more time to continue writing. One word after the other. That is the only way this manuscript is going to be done, even if I have to go through my unproductive process of writing an act before revising the whole manuscript. I'll get there. I'll get to the top of that mountain. It's odd. I have sacrificed a significant sum of things to commit to the schedule that I currently live through. I've stopped writing poems. By that decision, I've also stopped performing. Gone were the days I would turn off my brain and play video games with my fri

A short entry. I am in the brief process of reading through Chapter Six. Small changes. A few words here, a few cuts there. I won't finish this by tonight. I'm severely lacking sleep and I might've contracted mild food poisoning. Either way, I'm expecting to get this done by tomorrow. Then, I'll be able to get started on concluding Act One's revisions.

This is the first of my journal entry regarding my progress on The Ethics of Demons. I'm happy. After months being stuck in the slump of writer's block, I've finally finished revising chapter six. I'm now one chapter away from revising Act One in its entirety. Off the top of my head, this has already given me several ideas for upcoming blog posts on my writing process and my daily life as an aspiring novelist. However, I digress. There were a lot of things happening in my life that kept me from writing consistently. In fact, one of those things was remembering how vital consistency is. It's not the same for everyone but my ability to write highly depends on momentum. Missing one or two days of writing is fine. A couple of weeks? Months? There'd be no hope. I'm not proud of those times where I would be punching in less than ten words a week. It's a learning process. Everyone has gone through it, is going through it and will go through it, of that I am

I am horrible at commiting to a blog, yet I try to anyway. Moving forward, my plan for my blog is simple. My blog will be my journal. A journal or diary that will keep me accountable to my writing; an archive of quotes and ideas I come across; a platform for me to voice my opinions, and a space for me to share experiences that would be too lengthy to write about anywhere else. I expect this discipline to be a step forward in honing my craft as a writer. Thus, I can only hope that I can consistently commit to it this time around. That in itself is already a post to write about.  Edit: I just found out that this is exactly what I decided months ago. I'm an idiot.

If I traveled back in time and told my younger self I'd be fully committed to writing a novel, I'd end up kicking my younger self in the shins before he could get too excited. I'm two-thirds done with my manuscript. It's horrible, but I keep telling myself most things are when I'm relying on streams of consciousness to churn the words out.  It's an emotional roller coaster. There's a lot of frustration and anxiety. Reading through paragraphs on paragraphs that don't reflect the visions I had; only then to discover maybe I didn't have them in the first place. Poorly built roads leading to these moments that I so wanted to write. This is the immediate worry among a long list of worries. However,  I don't see myself doing anything else.  I don't want to do anything else. I  delude myself into thinking this is what 'having a calling' means and I fall into it with my arms wide open.  On a side note, the fact that Samuel Beckett felt